The present invention relates to a heat sink for eliminating heat produced by a device such as an electrical and electronic device, in particular a semiconductor chip such as an integrated circuits, or a casing for such an electric/electronic device.
To date, a conventional cooling apparatus or heat sink is made of metals, metal alloys, metal composites or the like. Concrete examples of materials include aluminum and metal matrix composites. In order to be able to radiate heat produced by the device being cooled as rapidly and completely as possible to the surrounding environment, the heat sink should exhibit a greatest possible contact surface towards the ambient atmosphere. To meet this requirement, conventional heat sinks are formed with a number of contoured areas such as ribs, knobs or like so that the heat sinks receive a relatively large surface at comparable small mass. Still, metallic heat sinks of this type have the drawback of a significant mass and size. Moreover, it should also be taken into consideration that the performance of electronic components steadily increases in modern microelectronics, resulting in an increased production of dissipated heat to be eliminated. At the same time, the mentioned power increase is accompanied by a desire to minimize the size of the components.
In order to reliably and effectively carry away increasing amounts of lost heat by use of a heat sink of the above-stated type, this heat sink must be dimensioned of relatively great size and volume, resulting in greater geometric sizes of the electric and/or electronic devices which incorporate the component to be cooled so that the achievements of the microelectronics, namely the manufacture of particularly small and thus practical devices (e.g. mobile telephones or portable computers) by means of especially small and powerful components are defeated.